Former Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, has distanced himself from recent concerns over drones allegedly procured to aid the fight against illegal mining (galamsey), insisting that he neither received the drones nor any documentation about them during his tenure.
His comments come after the Lands Minister Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah disclosed that he has not seen any of the drones reportedly procured by the Akufo-Addo government to fight illegal mining.
Speaking at a meeting with the management and staff of the Minerals Commission in Accra on April 7, 2025, Mr Buah stressed the importance of technology in tackling galamsey but said he has yet to locate the drones since assuming office.
Reacting to this development in an interview on Joy FM, Mr Jinapor clarified that the drones in question were reportedly purchased in 2018 by the now-defunct Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), chaired by Prof Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng.
He explained that when he assumed office as Lands Minister, there was no formal handover or documentation regarding the existence or location of the said drones.
“These drones that are being talked about are drones which were supposedly bought in 2018 by the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining, which was headed by Prof Frimpong-Boateng.
“When I became minister, there was no handover note which suggested that drones had been bought; neither were there any drones handed over to me as minister,” he stressed.
Mr Jinapor, therefore, directed all enquiries about the drones to the Minerals Commission, the statutory body responsible for mining records, or to the leadership of the defunct IMCIM.
“So the correct place to direct the enquiry will be the Minerals Commission, which is the repository of all records about mining, and therefore they should have records of it, and/or the leadership of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining headed by Prof Frimpong-Boateng and his colleagues,” he advised.
When asked if he had queried the Inter-Ministerial Committee about the matter during his tenure, the former minister replied in the affirmative.
“I made queries and enquiries. There were no records of these drones … they just did not exist at the time I became a minister. Were they bought? Were they not bought? How were they handled? All these questions can be answered by the Inter-Ministerial Committee.”
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